Virgin Media Equips 2,600 Vehicles With Fuel Saving Tool

Virgin Media will use SageQuest, a web-based tracking and management tool developed by Fleetmatics Group, to help save fuel and improve efficiency of its 2,600-vehicle fleet serving the UK and Ireland.

The management tool, which uses GPS tracking, offers fuel-saving features that include traffic congestion alerts and monitoring of engine idling.

That can add up to significant savings. A 2012 study by Argonne National Laboratory reported that one hour of idling is equivalent to 25 miles of driving by the typical fleet vehicle, Virgin Media said.

SageQuest provides fleet owners with a real-time view of what’s going on in the field with instant access to data, scaled to allow a number of users to access the system without slowing or crashing, the vendor said. The management tool combines Garmin vehicle navigation systems and Google maps capabilities to provide street views, helping drivers avoid getting lost.

The management tool also aims to improve safety with its real-time ability to monitor for speeding, fast cornering, hard braking and excessive acceleration. The system will send management alerts to discourage these behaviors by its fleet drivers.

Fleetmatics’ GPS fleet tracking is already installed in more 310,000 vehicles worldwide, the company said.

Virgin Group-owned businesses have taken a number of steps to improve sustainability in recent years. Virgin Hotels signed up last month to the Whole World Water initiative and will filter, bottle and sell its own water. Virgin group founder Richard Branson said the program’s model reduces shipping pollution as well as financial and environmental costs.

Virgin Media was among several companies, including McGraw-Hill and Allstate, achieving high scores that are more than double that of their nearest industry peers in a corporate green ranking released last year by sustainability consultants Soyka & Co.